Lord of Disease (JP-GL) 245

245: A Return Order

A few days after the fall of Wessphia…

I was in my room, not in a good mood, having just sent a message to His Majesty via ghost pigeon, a simple (post-facto) report of the city’s demise.

While I was also participating in the training, I couldn’t go all out. My death knights were full of enthusiasm, but they were regular knights and undead. I was just a human.

And besides, my senior staff, including myself, were all recovering from the operation in Wessphia.

In addition to the fatigue from the forced march, I had been plagued by nightmares for a few days, a classic rookie experience, and I was a little sleep-deprived. Liz, seeing my condition, had offered to sleep with me, and I had slept much better last night, though I had been woken up once, in the middle of the night. I believed it was necessary, I had steeled myself, but my mind and body were not so easily convinced.

I deserved a relaxing, refreshing bath, even if it wasn’t a public bathhouse.

Fort Litalside had a bath. A bathhouse attached to the training grounds, for washing away the sweat and fatigue of training. Of course, since it was designed for a large number of people, it was quite spacious.

The widespread use of baths was thanks to magic, including [Create Ooze]. It was wonderful not to need plumbing. If I were to be greedy, I would have wished for a hot spring, but that would have been too much. The high rate of bathhouse adoption in Listrea was also due to the fact that ooze was more viscous than water, so the standards for bathtub leakage were much more lenient.

And of course, the men’s and women’s baths were separate. They were the same size, but since there were more men than women, the women’s bath was more spacious.

And so, today, not just Bridget and Liz, but also Aithys, Rebecca, and Clarion, were all bathing together, to wash away the sweat of training and to deepen their bonds.

I had climbed up to the ramparts with Bridget, and was enjoying the cool evening breeze on my warm, post-bath body.

“Master, a return order.”

Liz had come to call me, a letter in her hand.

“Liz. A return order?”

“Yes.”

“Then, as much as I hate to leave, shall we go tomorrow…?”

“It says to depart as soon as you receive the letter…”

“That’s sudden. Why?”

“They want to hold a meeting about the Wessphia incident as soon as possible… His Majesty says, ‘I’m sorry to trouble you after the operation, but please return immediately.’”

I glanced at the letter she handed me. It was just as she had summarized.

“How about we pretend we received this tomorrow morning?”

“…Well, I understand the sentiment.” But it was still a direct order. Disobeying it could lead to trouble.

“I suppose… it can’t be helped.” I sighed.

“Bridget, that’s the situation…”

“Yes. If it’s His Majesty’s order, it can’t be helped. Come again, anytime. You’re always welcome.”

“Yes.” Bridget hugged me lightly, and I hugged her back.

“Let our death knights rest. Tell them they can come back by carriage tomorrow, at their own pace.”

“Understood.”

“Well then, see you later.”

“See you.”

We waved to each other one last time, and I followed Liz down the ramparts.

We stopped by our room, picked up our already packed luggage, and went to the fortress square. Aithys was waiting by Leaf’s side, in her flight suit.

“Hey. This is sudden. But we’re ready. We can fly anytime.”

“Thank you. Is Leaf alright?”

Leaf let out a soft cry, and Aithys nodded.

“He’s rested. We’ve only been flying lightly since we got back.”

Liz and Samarkand helped me onto Leaf’s back, and I was… on a griffin. I pulled my goggles down.

“Ready? —Objective, the Listrean capital.”

Aithys, having confirmed that everyone was on board, looked ahead.

“Let’s go.”

Leaf pushed off with his lion’s hind legs and, with a single beat of his eagle’s wings, he was in the air, as if defying gravity.

I caught a glimpse of Bridget waving from the ramparts, but she quickly disappeared from view.

The body of a griffin, a chimeric beast of a lion and an eagle, was abnormally strong compared to a mere bird with hollow bones. By all rights, the lion part should have been a dead weight, and it shouldn’t have been able to fly, but they managed it, mainly with magic. The larger they were, the more mana they had. But they also had to eat more.

Perhaps dragons were at the end of that evolutionary path. In peacetime, they were surprisingly efficient, spending much of their time sleeping, so they didn’t need to eat much. But once a dragon, with its hard scales and powerful muscles, took to the air with magic, enhanced its scales with magic, and amplified the power of its fire with magic… it would quickly run out of mana.

Dragons didn’t have the ability to absorb mana, but they did have the usual means of recovery. That is, ‘nutritional intake, including mana, through food.’

The reason the Listrea Demon Kingdom didn’t use dragons on the front lines, except for patrols and hunting large magical beasts, and the reason the Dragon Knights, who had once been the pride of Rank Kingdom, had been designated as a trump card, was because of their poor fuel economy in battle.

The hungrier a dragon became, the more dangerous it became… and if it couldn’t eat its enemies, it would turn on its allies.

In reality, dragons were not hungry creatures. They were at the top of the food chain, and no wild animal would dare to pick a fight with them. They rarely fought among themselves. Their territories rarely overlapped. They were a gentle race, whose power was proportional to their size.

So, to send a dragon into battle required a certain resolve. And without a high-ranking dragon like Lital-sama, it would be incredibly dangerous.

Griffins, on the other hand, ate a lot in peacetime, but their food intake didn’t increase much in wartime. And our Black Hound Barghests, while they could eat meat, primarily operated on their mana absorption ability. There were many different kinds of magical beasts.

…It felt like a dream. Flying through the night sky, on the back of a griffin. With everyone who called me their master, led by a cute dark elf maid.

The place I was in was not hell.

—Really?

I closed my eyes, and everything went black. The sound faded.

I was in a dark barn, hugging my knees, not thinking about anything. On the ramparts, just waiting to be pushed off. A city, engulfed in flames, with screams and shouts.

It felt like I was in a long dream—

“Master, wake up.” I was being shaken.

“Huh? Wait… was I sleeping?”

In fact, I seemed to have been in the world of dreams. I regained consciousness and, the moment I opened my eyes, a dazzling light filled my vision, and I reflexively closed them again. The morning sun. The night had already passed.

“I’m surprised you can sleep in that position. In a way, I respect that.”

As Liz had said, I must have been sleeping in an awkward position, because my neck hurt. But I had slept well, and I felt quite refreshed.

“Well, regardless of the position, I thought it was better to let you sleep. You seemed tired.”

“Yes, thank you. The vibration of a moving vehicle is very sleep-inducing.” Cars, trains… Especially a heated train in the winter, when you were tired, it was easy to lose consciousness. Though I had been the type to never sleep on a train, because I couldn’t trust others.

“I don’t know if you’re delicate or just thick-skinned, Master. …We’re almost at the capital.”

Leaf was still flying. His body temperature was a little high, but he didn’t seem to be in any pain.

“—We’re going down.”

At Aithys’s words, the reins were pulled, and the wings were folded. The ground rushed up to meet us, and the sudden braking woke me up completely.

The landing was gentle, and he came to a stop after a few steps. In front of the Lord of Disease’s mansion. A familiar place, but from the back of a griffin, it looked different.

Everyone except Aithys dismounted, and she, still on Leaf’s neck, called out to us.

“I’m going back to the Dark Forest. …Thanks for everything.”

That had been the plan, even before we had gone to Wessphia. When we returned to the capital from Fort Litalside, she would return to the Third Army in the Dark Forest.

“You too, thank you. I’m sorry, I was sleeping. You’re not tired, are you?”

“Flying for half a day without sleep is nothing. …And you’re the first person I’ve ever seen sleep on a griffin.”

Well, normally, a griffin would only carry its rider, or, like the Fourth Army, a rear passenger with a long-range weapon. It wasn’t a situation where you could afford to sleep.

“How’s the new flight suit?”

“Hmm, it’s good. It makes a big difference when it fits properly. The reins are easier to handle, and I feel less tired after a long flight.”

Aithys’s flight suit had clearly been too small (in the chest), so I had asked Liz to have a new one made from magic cloth at Fort Litalside. It hadn’t been ready in time for our trip to Wessphia, but I was glad it had been ready before Aithys left. And it seemed she liked it.

“Take care… okay?”

“Yeah. If anything else comes up… don’t hesitate to call. Leaf and I will fly for you.”

Aithys pulled the reins, and Leaf pushed off the ground. The two of them, bathed in the morning sun, glowed white.

“Give my regards to Lathus and Catral-san! And tell them that to me, Aithys is the best griffin rider!” I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted at their retreating figures. I didn’t know if they had heard me.

Leaf and Aithys circled once, their wings glinting, then flew towards the Dark Forest.

Her cheeks were hot. The new flight suit, which had improved not only in size but also in insulation, might have been a little too effective.

She spoke to her griffin, Leaf.

“…He was a strange one, wasn’t he, Leaf?”

There was no reply. It wasn’t clear if griffins could understand human speech. They would obey simple commands, and they seemed to understand the emotions behind them.

So, this was just her, talking to herself.

“…She said… that to her, I was the best griffin rider.”

She was still a trainee. Just one of the candidates, not yet a fully recognized griffin rider.

And yet, she…

She reached out and patted the griffin’s neck.

“I don’t know what will happen, but… if the time comes to fly for her again… I’m counting on you, right, Leaf?”

Leaf let out a cry.

They didn’t speak again, and they flew straight for the Dark Forest. The flush in her cheeks would probably subside by the time she got back.

But the heat in her chest. The fire that had been lit in her heart… would probably never go out.